Efficiency study recommendations could help stabilize state’s finances
No additional funds for schools
by Jim McLean, KHI News Service
Kansas lawmakers picked up their pace Wednesday, approving what for the moment is a balanced budget and advancing several other proposals ahead of a scheduled mid-session break next week.
The budget bill uses a series of transfers, spending reductions and some borrowing to balance the current budget and end the fiscal year with a paltry $6 million in the treasury. It also closes a projected $200 million shortfall in the budget year that begins July 1.
The spending measure doesn’t include any additional money for Kansas schools despite a recent Kansas Supreme Court decision that said the current K-12 funding formula is inequitable and unconstitutional. The Kansas Department of Education has estimated it will cost about $70 million this year and $38 million next year to comply with the court’s ruling. (The Kansas Supreme Court gave the Legislature until June 30 to correct inequities in school finance.)
Ty Masterson, the Andover Republican who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said legislative leaders need time to study the court’s order.
“It is not necessary at this time to address anything as it pertains to the court,” Masterson said during the Senate’s debate on the budget bill. “We have an opportunity to work through that. And the jury is out on what that really needs to be.”
Democrats and several moderate Republicans voted against the budget, saying it doesn’t fix structural problems that have caused revenue shortfalls in recent years. They point to the income tax cuts Gov. Sam Brownback muscled through the Legislature in 2012 as the main cause of those shortfalls.
“This budget reinforces the fiscal mismanagement caused by a reckless and irresponsible tax policy,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley of Topeka.
Masterson and other Republican leaders say that the state’s ongoing budget problems are manageable.
“We’re solving problems as we move forward,” he said.
Both Masterson and Rep. Ron Ryckman Jr., the Olathe Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said implementing some of the cost-cutting initiatives included in a recent efficiency study could stabilize the budget.
The study, done by the New York-based consulting firm of Alvarez and Marsal under a $2.6 million contract with the state, said Kansas could save more than $2 billion over the next five years by making a variety of management and policy changes.
In the coming weeks, lawmakers are expected to focus on 21 recommendations that the consultants say could save up to $1.7 billion. Limiting state employees to one health insurance option is among the recommendations being considered for immediate implementation. Limiting state workers to a high-deductible plan that would require them to cover a significant portion of their medical costs with money from a health savings account could save the state nearly $124 million, according to the consultant’s report.
Parents as Teachers
Initial versions of the budget bill included a proposal to means test participants in the Parents as Teachers program so that federal welfare dollars could be used to cover its $12.3 million annual cost. The proposal would have required those who didn’t meet the income guidelines to pay to participate.
Advocates protested, saying the changes would transform what was intended to be a program to help all families address issues that could affect school performance into one used predominantly by low-income families.
Budget negotiators pulled the controversial proposal out of the bill and substituted language that leaves the decision to the Kansas Children’s Cabinet.
That didn’t satisfy Sen. Laura Kelly, of Topeka, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee.
“Essentially, we’ve thrown Parents as Teachers under the bus,” Kelly said. “We said, ‘OK, we’ll give that decision back to the Children’s Cabinet and let them decide whether they’ll use TANF (federal welfare funds) for Parents as Teachers. Possibly they won’t. But it’s very likely that they will, in which case we destroy that program.”
Masterson disagreed. If anything, he said, “We put the Children’s Cabinet in the bus, driving the bus. It’s their decision.”
Suicide prevention
Immediately before they considered the budget bill, senators tentatively approved a measure aimed at preventing teenage suicides. The bill, which hasn’t yet been considered by the House, would require certified teachers and principals to complete suicide prevention training each year.
Steve Abrams, the Arkansas City Republican who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said testimony provided by parents of children who committed suicide convinced him of the need for the bill.
“This is something that if indeed it saves even one life, it’s worth the effort,” Abrams said.
Another Medicaid expansion debate
The Senate on Thursday is expected to consider a welfare “reform” bill that could provide opponents of Medicaid expansion another opportunity to engineer the defeat of a bill backed by the Kansas Hospital Association.
Last week, Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a Republican from Shawnee, failed to force a vote on expansion because the amendment she offered was ruled not germane to the bill under consideration at the time. But the welfare bill on the calendar for consideration Thursday probably is germane, said Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, because it includes medical assistance programs.
Supporters of expansion are expecting either Pilcher-Cook or Sen. Jeff Melcher, a Leawood Republican, to force a vote on Medicaid expansion in hopes of defeating the bill and sending a message to the House where there is more support for expansion.
But in an interview Wednesday evening, Melcher said he hadn’t decided whether to raise the issue during Thursday’s debate on the welfare bill, which seeks to further tighten eligibility requirements.
“I haven’t really decided what I’m going to do,” Melcher said. “But I do think it’s important to let the public know where we stand on it (Medicaid expansion).”
After last week’s rules fight, Wagle removed Pilcher-Cook as chair of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee. That prompted 17 of the Senate’s 32 Republicans to send a letter to Wagle asking her to reinstate Pilcher-Cook.
But Wagle said Wednesday that she wouldn’t reconsider her decision.
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